Trying to choose a new MMO.

Unless you know exactly what you're looking for, and can convey this, it's difficult for anyone to say what's going to be good for you, as one man's trash is another man's treasure. The MMO arena is a carnival of flavours, and there really isn't anything that's decisively awesome. Every MMO out there right now offers something different, but unfortunately there's not a one that can give you everything an MMO can offer.

Since you're thinking of ESO vs GW2 I can highlight some of the differences.

ESO has real time combat, similar to TES games, assuming you've played those. GW2 does not, but allows dodging.

ESO has mounts and a riding skill that can be customized by feeding your horse different foods. GW2 has no mounts at all.

Both games do a very good job at promoting exploration, though ESO maps are larger.

ESO does not have public auction houses. You must join a "merchant guild", which is a player run guild, who can then solicit a trader, who sells to the public via an auction interface, but unless you're in such a guild, you will not be able to sell to the public via an auction interface. You'll have to rely on zone chat. GW2 has a public auction house, and it works very well.

ESO has inventory management challenges, so to speak. Your bags will fill very quickly, and you will have to pay in-game gold to purchase more space. It will pretty much be the only thing you spend money on other than a horse, as there is no housing. GW2 does not have inventory management challenges whatsoever, as you're able to send mats to your bank from anywhere, and your bank is by default large enough to contain every crafting material in the game.

Neither game has housing - frowny face.

GW2 has no grouping problems whatsever. It's a joy to group up in GW2 and is often not even needed because of it's dynamic leveling system, independent loot channels, and open tapping. GW2 automatically down levels you to whatever zone your in, and you can do any quest as many times as you want. ESO has major grouping problems as it's very story based and therefore heavily phased. If you do a quest, you will never be able to do it again, and if you're grouped with someone who has not done that quest, you wont be able to see much of what they see in that quest, which will often lead to frustration. The downside with GW2 however is that things are so fast and dynamic that it rarely feels like an RPG, but more of an open-world, hack 'em up game.

ESO has a more medieval style, whereas GW2 is an amalgamation of sci-fi, steam-punk, and medieval mushed together into a cornucopia of nerddom.

GW2 has awesome open world RAIDS. Like omg that's huge world bosses. ESO... ermmmm, they have anchors which are face roll easy, and cheesy bosses that can be duoed most of the time. Although, overall ESO PVE is more challenging and less zerg fest.

ESO you can do pretty much anything with one character. You can have a mage that wields a 2-hander, and wears heavy armour. You can also level every crafting skill. GW2 allows you to level every crafting skill on one toon as well, but classes have more traditional RPG restriction.

ESO has a pseudo skill-gain-by-use system, whereas the more you use a skill, the better you get at it. As well as gaining experience in that skill just by having it slotted when you turn in a quest. GW2 does not. GW2 is traditional, you level, you put points wherever.

Both are good games, and I keep them both installed, but I personally like ESO because it's a tad more serious, a tad more challenging, has real time combat, better crafting imo, and mounts. In ESO, although you can tailor your build to your liking, the game still promotes a trinity group system, tank, healer, support, though it does a good job providing a lot of freedom within those roles. Which I like. Also the new criminal skill tree is incredibly fun and will only get better.

There you have it. I probably missed a lot of stuff, but hopefully this helps a little.

/r/MMORPG Thread